


Sleepwalk

by Theeniebean



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Burning, Fires, Gen, Nightmares, Pre-Episode: s12e01 Spyfall Part 1, because everything is thoschei, introspective, it is thoschei but also not featured, non-binary doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23087620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theeniebean/pseuds/Theeniebean
Summary: There's no getting away from some things. For the Master, it's fire.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Sleepwalk

In his dreams, he is burning. It's the most frequent one, loathe as he is to admit it in his waking hours. The sickening crackle of his flesh sloughing from his bones; the charcoal stench of it clinging to his senses even after he jolts awake, sweat soaking through sheets and hearts racing, fingers twisting, gripping whatever they can, checking every inch of himself before he can separate reality from the vivid horrors. It's all he can do to choke back a gasp of breath, wrestling control of himself from himself, the conscious crushing the subconscious under layer after layer. 

He lived it, he doesn't have to dwell. 

But that's suspiciously like them, isn't it. Running away from it, the fear that grips their hearts; no, he can't have that. He isn't afraid. 

When he has the dream, everything else burns twice as bright to compensate. 

\---

The day Gallifrey burns, the day he burns it, he doesn't sleep at all. He just sits on a ridge overlooking the capitol. The fumes burn his eyes even from here, and the smell is a thousand fold what his memories have dredged up, and his hands trail his own skin without his consent, absently checking for any blemish, any singe. He can't help but expect it to hurt when he breathes, or for the slightest breeze to sting against his face. The tears surprise him. He hadn't expected that.

Somewhere, idly, he wonders if they came when he struck his family down. He doubts it, in an abstract way. They'd said their peace far too long ago when he'd made his decisions for this to be from them. He wonders if they'd expected this to happen eventually. He would have, if he were them; and then done it first. 

Could've been when he'd gotten the Doctor's kin; he'd liked some of them more, certainly, but - he hums to himself, brushing the heel of his palm against his cheek. Unlikely. Not for them. Not now. None of them were real, anyway. 

Had they known?

He wonders when he regenerated. He certainly hadn't been a he when he'd arrived, had he? 

It hadn't been this quiet before, in his head; not for a while. There's a certain serenity to it, knowing everything's been a lie. Knowing everyone is dead. Mostly everyone. May as well be everyone. It could be quieter. The truth rattles around, cruelly unfettered - digging its claws in, preparing to fester inside old wounds that he'd thought had healed long ago. Or maybe they hadn't - maybe that had been the whole point.

Maybe that's why he'd been digging in the Matrix. Always digging, always needling, always pulling at the thread, trying to see what unravels. Trying to unravel them. 

He pulls his knees to his chest, burying his face, screaming raw into his bloody clothes.

\---

His eyes don't close for several days, refusing sleep until they are bloodshot and stinging, until he collapses at his console. The Lord President towers over him, a wickerman of judgment, her golden hair ablaze, and he knows this is wrong, that she wasn't there, that he didn't kill her, but oh, he did, she just wasn't president - but he screams all the same as she grasps his wrist and the flames lick up his arms, as her eyes roll back into her skull, and he begs her, Romana, please, please let me go, please don't - 

He doesn't sleep anymore. 

Even when he adopts a new moniker and becomes infamous at MI-6 for having as many cups of tea at his desk as he does conspiracy clippings, he refuses to succumb to the siren's song. If that makes his persona more believable, more's the better - let him be the delusional insomniac. The Master of Disguise has simply added method acting to his repertoire. 

He has too much time on his hands when he's fired. Everything is going too well, too according to plan. All he can do is wait. 

This plan is moving at a snail's pace, and he's just so, so tired.


End file.
